


dead names.

by Ricky B (littletoes101)



Series: ambient noise. [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Gen, Trans, Trans Male Character, Transgender, abuse mention, dead names, trans leon kuwata, trans male, trans mondo oowada, transgender male
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 18:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18299807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littletoes101/pseuds/Ricky%20B
Summary: "What was your name before?"Leon asks Mondo a personal question, and the two of them ponder on who they used to be. Feat. trans!Mondo and trans!Leon. Also warning for mentions of parental abuse, CSA, and deadnaming.





	dead names.

“So, uh.”

It’s because Leon’s voice is quiet that Mondo even notices it over the din of whatever game Leon’s playing on his phone. Leon’s not the type of person to be quiet, and he only ever gets quiet when he’s nervous. Which, to be fair, happens pretty often, because it’s Leon for God’s sake.

But Mondo can hear him out just this once, he supposes.

“Yeah? Spit it out,” Mondo grumbles from where he lays on his bed. Leon’s in one corner of the room, wearing just his undershirt and binder underneath and a pair of boxers. It’s an impromptu sleepover night; Leon texted Mondo an hour earlier asking if he could come over, and Mondo didn’t see the harm in it so he let him. Now that the clock is inching towards midnight, he has a feeling that Leon is gonna want to stay.

Leon swallows. “What… what was your name before?” He finally manages to ask.

“...before what?” Mondo presses, though he’s pretty damn sure he knows what Leon means.

“Y’know. Before you found out you were… y’know. Not a girl.” Leon motions to his entire body while saying this, apparently having paused whatever game was on his phone. Mondo props himself up on his elbows. “I mean, if you don’t wanna tell me that’s fine, ‘s prolly a sore spot or whatever --”

“Naomi,” Mondo cuts Leon off. He’s not looking at him, but his voice is clear. “That’s the old one. The dead one, ‘s what Chihiro told me a lotta guys like us call it.” It’s still so hard for Mondo to say the word “transgender” in reference to himself, but he’s trying. He’s learning. Learning that it’s not a __bad__  thing to be, it doesn’t make him any less of a man than one who was born with a dick big enough to be considered a boy.

Even so, it’s a hard lesson to have to learn so late in your life.

“Oh. Okay.” Leon’s quiet for a moment, and there’s the sound of cloth shifting. Mondo turns his head to see Leon resting on his stomach, elbows on the floor, holding his chin in his hands. He’s still amazed and envious of the fact that Leon has a goatee and Mondo can barely grow stubble on a good day. Life just isn’t fair, he figures. “When you say dead name, like… does that kinda mean the person you were before’s dead too?”

Mondo sighs. This has to be at least part of the reason why Leon wanted to come over tonight, but Mondo can’t really put blame on him. “Well, yeah. Legally, Naomi Oowada ain’t real. She’s dead. Died a long time ago.” Mondo never considered himself a girl, even before beginning his transition, but he considers the first time he picked up a pair of scissors and cut his hair while tears flowed down his face to be the moment Naomi Oowada died for good.

Leon’s baby blue eyes dart around the room for a few seconds. “Mine’s Brionne,” he finally murmurs. “It’s Irish. It was Mom’s mom’s name, like, a family thing I guess. It’s pretty, but…” He trails off, not really sure how to continue his thought.

“Pretty, but it ain’t yours,” Mondo finishes for him. “Yeah, I know the feelin’.” It’s not that Mondo hates Naomi; it’s a beautiful name. If he had a daughter, he might even call her that. It just isn’t __his name__. He feels the same way about any other name that isn’t his. A nice name, but not one that belongs to him. He doesn’t hate Naomi.

He just wishes his stomach didn’t churn every time he hears the name.

“I won’t tell, by the way,” Leon says quickly after that period of awkward silence. “Just in case you were worried, or anything. I won’t tell anyone about the dead name.”

“Same here. Man’s promise.” Mondo gives a half-awake thumbs-up. “I only know ya’ as Leon, anyway. It’d be weird to call ya’ somethin’ else just ‘cause your folks did.”

“Sometimes they still do,” Leon sighs. “It’s not like they __mean__  to. It’s just… ten years they knew Brionne. Now she’s dead and Leon’s there instead.” He looks down, takes his chin from his hands and lets them play with the front of his shirt. “Y’know, sometimes they’ll start to say, like, “Bri” but then they stop and say “Leon” instead.”

“God, I wish,” Mondo half-laughs. “I’d __just__  figured it out when Mom died. You know how Ryuu is.” Ryuu Oowada, his father -- no, not his father, just the man who gave the sperm that became Mondo at a later date -- has never been able to come to terms with his “daughters” being his sons. Besides, he walked out on the family a few years before their mother died.

Mondo’s more of a man than he’ll ever be.

“Yeah man, that’s shitty,” Leon says. “I mean, Daiya is too, right? So how come…”

“Daiya didn’t change his name,” Mondo says. “Sides, when I started goin’ by, y’know, Mondo, we had the gang an’ shit so now we were the Diamond brothers. He thought that was the __shit__.” He snorts. “Still does. But I guess that’s kinda why Ryuu gives ‘im a harder time of it.”

That, and the fact that his brother has a child fathered by another man, a man who doesn’t have the right to see him again and never will, a man who put his hands on a vulnerable child still learning about the cruelties of the world. Daiya only recently came clean about that story, and it sickens Mondo as much as it did the first time he heard it.

“Oh.” Leon still doesn’t know the full details, but he knows enough that he goes quiet. “Okay.”

That night, Naomi Oowada and Brionne Kuwata are laid to rest for the final time, lost to the sands of time and pages of history.


End file.
